1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for external medical treatment with the aid of light, more specifically with the aid of light which palliates and/or cures different states of diseases.
2. Description of the Related Art
Swedish Patent Specification No. 502 784 teaches an apparatus for external medical treatment with the aid of light that includes a light-emitting device which is intended to be held against or close to the body of an individual, and drive means for the light-emitting device. The light-emitting device includes light-emitting diodes or corresponding elements which are intended to emit infrared light. According to the aforesaid patent specification, the means for driving the light-emitting device is adapted to control said device to emit infrared-light in a first stage over a first predetermined time period and then to emit visible light in a second stage over a second predetermined time period, wherein said drive means is adapted to pulsate the infrared light and the visible light in accordance with a predetermined series of pulse frequencies.
It is also known to emit other types of monochromatic light for treating different states of diseases.
It has also been found that very good results can be obtained when treating a patient with solely one or more types of monochromatic light and with light other than infrared light, such as visible light of different colors emitted in accordance with a given pulse frequency.
It has been found that an apparatus of the aforesaid kind can be used very successfully for treating many different states of diseases and injuries, for instance sports injuries, stretched muscles, muscular pain, joint pain, headaches, various inflammatory conditions, various skin complaints, such as acne, back pains, etc., provided that the light is emitted in a certain way. In this regard, treatment with light has a favorable influence on injury-healing processes and will palliate and/or cure various diseases.
There is thus an understanding that treatment with certain light that is emitted in certain frequency series will have a significantly greater effect in shortening the time taken to cure or palliate a disease.
One problem with devices of this kind known hitherto is that the person administering the treatment is required to oscillate the light-emitting device while holding the device against or in close proximity to that region of the patient""s body to be treated. The reason for this is because the light-emitting diodes disposed at the bottom of the light-emitting device have a given geometric extension and are of different kinds, and hence two mutually adjacent light-emitting diodes of mutually the same kind will be spaced at a certain distance apart. It is therefore necessary to move the light-emitting device forwards and backwards over the area to be treated, in order to ensure that the whole of said area will be irradiated uniformly to the best possible extent.
Because treatment of this kind will usually take from two to ten minutes to carry out, frequent administration of the treatment administered may be very onerous to the person concerned.
This problem is solved by the present invention.
Thus, the present invention relates to an apparatus which is intended for external medical treatment with the aid of light. The apparatus includes a light-emitting device that is intended to lie against or to be held in close proximity to the patient""s body, wherein the light-emitting device includes light-emitting diodes or corresponding elements which are adapted to emit monochromatic light. Drive means that drives said device is adapted to control the light-emitting device to emit one or more types of monochromatic light over one or more predetermined time periods, and to pulsate said emitted light in accordance with a predetermined pulse frequency or series of pulse frequencies over said time periods. The light-emitting device includes a casing and a light-emitting-diode supporting plate, and includes an electric motor which is fixed in relation to said casing and connected to said plate via a drive shaft, so that the plate carrying the light-emitting diodes performs a rotary movement.